Everywhere you turn today, you’re bound to find something related to Amazon. From basic goods to IT and home services, Amazon has overtaken the way we think about shopping.
Is this a good thing, though? Does supporting Amazon also provide support for less-than-savory causes? Should we try to ween ourselves as a society from relying on Amazon?
If you’re looking for a good excuse, here are our top 5 reasons to say goodbye to your Amazon account.
Stop Feeding the Capitalist Machine
In May 2020, business news outlets flooded the world with predictions of the world’s first trillionaire. Who is this lucky person? According to everyone with even a grade-school level of economic knowledge, it’s Jeff Bezos (the founder of Amazon).
At face value, this might not seem particularly good or bad for the average citizen. What does Bezos’s wealth have to do with us?
Unfortunately, the answer is “a lot”. As Bezos gains his billions, the economic divide between the upper class and lower class Americans grows wider. This is true of all Western billionaires, but Bezos is unique given his astronomical wealth.
In short, the richer Bezos gets, the poorer everyone else in America gets, and the more the middle class disappears.
Support Local Economies
Amazon doesn’t just hurt the economy from a distance. It also directly targets the potential growth of small businesses.
This one should be a little more obvious. For every decorative rug you buy on Amazon; a handmade decorative rug at a local business goes unsold. Amazon gets your money, the local business gets nothing, and, if this pattern continues with other shoppers, the local business will be forced to close its doors.
Even companies that have direct partnerships with Amazon aren’t immune. Despite having a business agreement that should benefit them, small businesses more often end up paying the bulk of their revenue to Amazon in hosting and shipping fees.
Amazon also fights against small businesses at a legal level. The company has made headlines in the last few years for funneling nearly $1 Million to the campaign “No Tax on Jobs”.
This organization’s main goal is to cut business taxes for large cities like Seattle. In theory, this would help local businesses thrive, but what it actually succeeds in doing is punishing small businesses while leaving corporations largely untouched. No Tax on Jobs also contributes to gentrification by removing allocated taxes for affordable city housing.
Show Everyday Workers That They Matter
Disbanding small businesses isn’t the only way that Amazon engages in unethical business practices. The company also harms the rights of individual workers, especially those who are direct employees of Amazon.
Heal Our Environment
If you’ve been on YouTube at all in the last year, you’ve seen Amazon’s climate change pledge commercial. In this ad, Amazon reports that it will rely 100% on renewable energy sources by the year 2025.
Whether or not Amazon keeps this pledge, the fact remains that it’s a long way off from environmental friendliness right now. As of the last survey into the virtual giant’s business practices, clean energy only fuels 50% of its operations. That means that the other half of their energy stems from nuclear power, hydropower, and fossil fuels like coal and gas.
Amazon’s environmental damage doesn’t stop at the operational level. Each individual Amazon package also contributes to the worsening climate change crisis. Despite pleas to use recyclable materials in their packaging, Amazon continues to rely primarily on cardboard and plastic. Amazon’s popularity means that such cardboard and plastic waste have increased tenfold in the last decade.
Don’t Support Racism
With the resurgence of Black Lives Matter and other anti-racist movements worldwide, companies have become more aware than ever before that prejudice won’t pad their pockets anymore. At least, most companies except for Amazon have made this realization.
In April, Jeff Bezos made John Oliver’s hitlist by making racist statements about Chris Smalls, one of his Black employees. These remarks stemmed from Smalls’s decision to stage a walkout following Bezos’s decision to make “essential employees” work through the pandemic. Bezos went on to fire Smalls, which drew even greater backlash.
Amazon also supports global racism in much much subtler ways. For example, Amazon Web Services (AWS), the server platform Amazon launched to support business IT efforts, hosts the majority of ICE data. Related to this, AWS also hosts most of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) efforts.
The problem here is that ICE (and, by extension, the DHS and CBP) is responsible for much of the conflict between the American government and Hispanic/Latino immigrants. This includes detaining children in cages along the border, separating families, and tracking every move that American immigrants make.
How to Delete Your Amazon Account
If one of these reasons has convinced you to kick Amazon to the curb, you don’t have to waste time searching for a solution. As more and more people make the decision to leave Amazon behind, they have flooded the internet with tips and tricks for the easiest and most painless ways to do so.
To start your Amazon-less journey, check out this article on how to delete Amazon account. It has everything you need to know from the first step through the very end of the process.
Living an Amazon-Free Life
Amazon has become the standard for online orders and virtual shopping. It doesn’t have to be, though. More importantly, you don’t have to feel like you’re behind the times with tech for getting rid of your Amazon account.
If you’re convinced that Amazon is bad news, you don’t have to feel disheartened. Amazon may be the biggest and most convenient virtual shopping option, but it isn’t the only one. To learn more about virtual shopping alternatives and everything else you need in the cyber world, check out the rest of our site.